Hearst Health Prize to honor management or improvements in population health

Individuals, groups of individuals, organizations and institutions can submit information through Aug. 26 for the Hearst Health Prize, a partnership between Hearst Health and the Jefferson College of Population Health of Thomas Jefferson University.

The award recognizes projects focused mainly on U.S.-based populations that have led to the management of or improvements in population health outcomes, according to a news release. The winner will receive $100,000.

“In its most fundamental sense, population health seeks to improve or manage the health of a specific population,” the organizations said. “It is a systematic, holistic approach that aims to prevent disease by keeping people healthy and improving the quality of care.”

Hearst Health and the Jefferson College of Population Health provided the following as examples of population health programs:

  • A program that improved transitions of care for an elderly, disabled population
  • A technology, tool, or system that improved patient safety
  • Care guidance or clinical decision support tools that improve the quality of care delivered
  • An educational program that increased medication compliance for a specific population
  • A design initiative for a built environment that increased physical activity
  • A model that improved efficiencies and quality of follow-up care
  • A community stakeholder collaborative model that decreased visits to the emergency for homeless populations

The judges will choose up to three finalists in January 2017. The finalists will present their programs at a poster session on March 27, 2017, in Philadelphia at the Population Health Colloquium. The winner will be announced the next day.

Earlier this year, Community Care of North Carolina won the inaugural Hearst Health Prize for its transactional care model for the state’s Medicaid recipients. The other finalists were Centering Healthcare Institute in Boston and Jersey City Medical Center-Barnabas Health in Jersey City.

Tim Casey,

Executive Editor

Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.

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